Courtesy of John Rubino.
US markets closed for President’s day but futures point to record high open on Tuesday. Inflation is spiking on stronger growth, higher oil. Fed likely to raise interest rates next month. Gold and silver near multi-week highs. Trump national security adviser scandal evolving. Debate over Putin and fake news intensifies.
Best Of The Web
The four horsemen of the retirement Apocalypse – Financial Sense
Fed went from lender of last resort to destroyer of American wealth – Danielle DiMartino Booth
Mother of all financial bubbles – Peak Prosperity
China credit and global inflationary dynamics – Credit Bubble Bulletin
Not nearly enough growth to keep growing – Automatic Earth
11 stunning visualizations of gold show its value and rarity – Visual Capitalist
Bucket economics in global macro – Capitalist Exploits
This is how the status quo unravels – Charles Hugh Smith
Global growth in energy consumption (& economic growth) all about China – Econimica
‘Fed Up’ exposes the elite rot inside the Federal Reserve – MarketWatch
Vice-chairman of EuroThinkTank: “euro may already be lost” – Mish
Witch’s brew: sentiment up, complacency up – but uncertainty also up – MATA SII
The AI threat isn’t Skynet. It’s the end of the middle class – Wired
Bubbles, money and the VIX – Credit Bubble Bulletin
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Breaking News
The Economy
2/20 French-German spread blows out to five year wides – Zero Hedge
2/20 The reflationary window: open how wide for how long? – Financial Sense
2/20 Global stocks rise, S&P futures hit new record high – Zero Hedge
2/20 Alan Greenspan on how ‘productivity’ caused Brexit and Trump – Business Insider
2/20 Chinese banks’ off-book wealth products exceed $3.8 trillion – Bloomberg
2/20 Greek banks worry over sudden bad loan spike in Jan – Ekathimerini
2/20 ‘From bad to worse’: Greece hurtles towards a final reckoning – Guardian
2/20 EU insists upon divorce settlement before trade talks – Mish
2/20 Times of general corruption – Jesse’s Cafe Americain
2/20 Today’s hyper-bubble. Who is responsible? – Munknee
2/20 Chapter 11 for you and me – Energetic Forum
2/20 China’s economy is dangerously close to unraveling – MarketWatch
2/19 Australia headed for ‘economic armageddon’ – News.com.au
Precious Metals
2/20 Will Le Pen’s Front National provide Europe next big political shock? – City AM
2/20 Gold isn’t behaving in practice the way it should in theory – Bloomberg
2/20 Former Fed chairman warns gold the “ultimate insurance policy” – Silver Doctors
2/20 Someone is taking on the crooked banks! – Silver Doctors
2/20 Is 50% of Western Central Bank gold gone? – Talk Markets
2/20 How rising labor costs are impacting world’s largest gold miner – SRSrocco Report
2/20 Yellen can’t halt Trump gold rally that funds bet against – Bloomberg
2/20 Marc Faber warns investors to go long on gold, silver – Lombardi Letter
2/19 With inflation running hot, gold’s fundamentals strengthen – Jay Taylor Media
2/19 China disaster to trigger gold run, Trump to appoint 5 of 7 Fed governors – GoldSeek
2/19 Trump tariff could bifurcate physical silver from spot prices – Silver Doctors
2/19 Bo Polny outdoes himself: predicts gold to $2k & silver to $60 – Silver Doctors
2/19 Clif High on the coming depression, & $600/oz silver! – Silver Doctors
Inflation, Deflation, Currency War, Cryptocurrencies
2/20 Bond traders are placing euro-breakup bets again – Bloomberg
2/20 The supermarket food gamble may be up – Guardian
2/20 Jeff Snider on the global dollar shortage – Zero Hedge
2/20 Understanding blockchain – IOT for All
2/20 Krugman’s “bitcoin is antisocial and impractical” argument is flawed – Coin Telegraph
2/19 Policymakers must wake up to significance of higher inflation – Telegraph
2/19 Should you worry about inflation? – Independent
2/19 Only Germans love the euro these days – Bloomberg
Real Estate Bubble
2/17 U.S. housing starts fall; building permits hit one-year high – Yahoo!
2/16 Fed frets about commercial real estate bubble & its $2 trillion in loans – Wolf Street
2/16 Houses as ATMs No Longer – Liberty Street Economics
2/16 American home values are about to be cut in half – Economy And Markets
2/13 5 years of luxury condos for sale in Bal Harbour Miami – Condo Vultures
DollarCollapse Podcasts
12/21 Blow-Off Top
12/01 All Eyes On Italy
11/04 Instability on the horizon
10/04 European banks in the eye of the storm
9/13 Markets explain facts of life to Fed
8/16 A tough time to manage money
7/27 Random violence and political instability: the new normal
7/21 It’s not the event but the response to the event that matters
7/01 Brexit was just the beginning
Politics
2/20 Le Pen advances in French polls as security concerns sway voters – Bloomberg
2/20 The stakes for Trump and all of us – Paul Craig Roberts
2/20 Italy’s Renzi quits as party leader, triggers re-election fight – Bloomberg
2/20 John McCain just systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s entire worldview – WaPo
2/20 Helping “Deep State” undermine Trump hurts democracy – Information Clearing House
2/20 Russia calls for ‘post-West’ world order: Lavrov – Yahoo!
2/20 ‘Media did not make Trump and they can’t destroy him’ – Hill
2/20 Le Pen seeks ban on anti-police brutality protests – Business Standard
2/19 The most inspiring and effective digital tools of dissent – Magenta
2/19 Why liberals are wrong about Trump – Extreme Feed
2/19 Why Congress won’t investigate Michael Flynn, Russia and Trump – Medium
2/19 Trump’s losing his war on America’s spies – Medium
Offshore Investing
2/01 FATCA needs to go, but the FATCA “refugees” are never coming back – Zero Hedge
1/24 Switzerland: still a safe country for storage… but only for physical gold – GoldBroker
12/23 The best countries for your escape plan – International Man
12/21 Do you have an offshore backup plan? – Sovereign Investor
Clean Tech
2/20 Renewables boom, emissions plunge, consumers save – Breaking Energy
2/18 $10.96 billion concentrating solar power market – Yahoo!
2/17 Manganese X Energy: the next battery generation – Financial Post
2/17 India gets strong response to first-ever solar storage tender – Clean Technica
2/17 Solar energy milestone: 300 GW of PV capacity installed worldwide – Solar Server
2/17 The future of solar power technology is bright – Ars Technica
2/17 Solar power uility use exceeds home panels – Green Car Reports
2/16 The most-hated bear in solar isn’t backing down – Bloomberg
Art of the Collapse
2/16 The talking dead – Medium
2/13 Weekend update on appeals court ruling – SNL
2/13 Spicer returns – SNL
2/13 SNL’s Donald Trump takes his frustrations to ‘The People’s Court’ – WaPo
War, Civil Unrest, Privacy, Creeping Fascism, Police State
2/20 Bill Gates: terrorists could use viruses to kill millions – MarketWatch
2/20 Kim Jong Nam assassination caught on tape – Zero Hedge
2/20 War is the climate risk that Europe’s leaders are talking about – Bloomberg
2/20 Tensions escalate in Aegean after Turkish boat fires shots – Ekathimerini
2/20 Chinese military “reaching near-parity” with the West – SHTF Plan
2/20 ‘America wants empire and for Europeans to remain subservient’ – Ron Paul Institute
2/19 European Union president rejects Trump call for more NATO spending – CNBC
Self-sufficiency, Food Security, Survival
2/20 Medical cannabis — a vastly underutilized therapeutic option? – Mercola
2/19 13 things you should give up if you want to be successful – Medium
2/19 The price of farming humanely – Medium
2/19 What’s your dog really eating? – Medium
2/17 The 4 principles of financial success you can’t ignore – Medium
2/15 Organic food’s demand “gold rush” for producers – Natural News
2/14 Monsanto’s roundup must carry cancer warning label, judge decrees – Mercola
2/14 Fermented foods may be a key component of an anti-cancer diet – Mercola
2/14 10 easy recipes that make a week’s worth of food – Medium
CyberWar, CyberTerrorism, CyberCrime
2/19 NSA split from cyberwar command inevitable – Intercept
2/19 76 popular apps confirmed vulnerable to silent interception – Medium
2/16 Encryption apps help White House staffers leak—and maybe break the law – Wired
2/15 How democracies lose in cyberwar – Atlantic
2/14 Russian hackers pose increasing threat to UK’s national security – Independent
2/08 Trump’s impending crackdown on cybersecurity – Daily Reckoning
Off-Topic But Brilliant/Challenging/Infuriating
2/20 First they got sick, then they moved into a virtual utopia – BackChannel
2/20 A warning from Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking – Medium
2/20 During internment, Japanese teens created this heartbreaking scrapbook – Timeline
2/20 Defend the sacred: documentary – Vimeo
2/20 Fukushima aborts latest robot mission inside reactor – Zero Hedge
2/19 Behind the scenes of Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto – Back Channel
2/19 Oklahoma hits 100° in the dead of winter – Think Progress
2/19 Can secretive VR company magic leap repair its reputation? – The Ringer
2/18 GM to build and test thousands of self-driving Bolts in 2018 – Mish
2/17 A gourmet guide to wifi – Back Channel
